Cellular telephones have recently exploded onto the marketplace for a number of reasons such as availability of better cellular reception and more expansive coverage areas, lower prices, smaller phones and more competition. In our modem society, a car phone or a hand-held cellular phone which was once a luxury is now becoming a business and personal necessity. Still, while cellular phones are becoming more and more popular, the vast majority of individuals do not yet own cellular phones, due to in large part the high cost of the cellular calls and the monthly service fees charged by the cellular phone companies. While sometimes cellular phones are given away for free or little cost, to obtain the free phone a yearly service contract must typically be purchased which more than offsets the cost of the telephone for the phone company. The consumer, however, must now pay hundreds of dollars a year for the service contract.
Once the consumer decides to purchase a cellular telephone, a number of difficult decisions still must be made such as choosing the cellular provider and the particular calling plan. Once these choices are made, however, the consumer oftentimes must remain with the chosen provider for at least one year or else pay a steep severance penalty.
The costs of owning a cellular telephone also increase for the consumer when the costs for accessories for cellular phones are added up. Accessories such as AC adapters, car adapters, rechargeable batteries and battery charging units can add hundreds of dollars to the cost of owning a cellular phone.
There are a number of worries that the owner of a cellular phone must also face such as the possibility of theft of the cellular phone or theft of the phone number assigned to the cellular phone, which can then be used on other "cloned" cellular phones. If a cellular phone is stolen, a replacement phone is expensive and the phone number must be changed resulting in additional expenses and disruption of service. Cellular phone theft is also a large problem for the phone companies, which typically absorb the costs of illegally-made calls when a cellular phone or phone number is stolen. However, this ultimately results in higher rates that are passed on to the consumer.
If cellular phones were available that could overcome at least some of the above problems, more people of lesser means could have access to them. Therefore, to increase the accessibility of cellular phones to the general public there is a great need to overcome the many problems that exist today with cellular phones. This need is addressed by the present invention which, in addition to solving many of the above problems, provides new benefits not achievable with current cellular phones and cellular service providers.
The foregoing and other objects, features and various advantages of the present invention will be more readily apparent from the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments set forth below, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.